State of Emergency Declared in Bangkok: Update and Further Readings

Thailand declared a State of Emergency (SOE) here in Bangkok yesterday evening, and in light of the very alarmist headlines ricocheting around the globe, I wanted to post a short update about the situation here. There have been inevitable comments about the parallels between the current unrest in Kyrgyzstan and the situation here in Bangkok, and these powerful, disturbing pictures from the widespread anti-government protests in Kyrgyzstan are testament to how quickly a mob mentality can whip a situation toward its inevitable breaking point. However, it is important to remember that there was a SOE declared last year at this time, and that this is the 4th time a SOE has been declared in Thailand since 2008. Yesterday’s activities at Parliament certainly catalysed a long-festering situation, but that situation remains stable at the moment.

Reds on a mobile rally, April 6th, 2010 (photo by @nkoleszar)

Police and Red Shirts face off at RajdamriBTS Station (photo by @Bancha_nna)

That said, there is yet another mobile rally planned for tomorrow, in direct contravention of the SOE, and more buses of red shirts are headed toward Bangkok in order to participate. The next few days should be interesting, but then again this entire month has been interesting, especially as someone who came to Bangkok in order to write about Burma (that’s me, by the way).

For updated pictures and information, please see the following. I’ve included Twitter names too in case you want to follow them live:

– UPDATE: The Big Picture’s photoset entitled ‘Unrest in Thailand‘ has some incredible photos of the protests.

– The Bangkok Pundit (@bangkokpundict) parses the text of the State of Emergency decree, including what it means going forward: The Bangkok Pundit Blog